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MS faces lawsuit over alleged Xbox 360 disc damage

Euro gamers complain

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A European lawyer has threatened to initiate legal action against Microsoft in the light of complaints from 800 Xbox 360 customers that their discs have been scratched by the console's DVD drive.

Dutch lawyer Richard de Lange of De Lange, Peeters & Langereis Lawyers told Register Hardware: "I'll represent one dissatisfied customer to begin with, unless Microsoft will address the issue in due course." If not, de Lange may seek class-action status.

The scratching problem has been widely reported on the net, but customers continue to complain that Microsoft is ignoring the issue.

Microsoft says problems do occur when switching the unit's position from vertical to horizontal and vise versa while a disc is inserted and spinning. However, customers say the issue is rooted much more deeply.

Dutch consumer show Kassa recently investigated the problems and claimed that a piece of rubber normally found in DVD players is missing from Xbox 360 drives. Some users say that when they added a foam rubber pad opposite side to the laser from the disc spindle, damage was prevented.

In 2002, a similar fault surfaced with the first Xbox in Japan. Scratches were etched on the edge of the laser side of the disc, and were made when the DVD was placed on the drive tray.

A company called Zoozen recently introduced a disc scratch protection kit for the Xbox 360, which consists of soft foam pads which attach to the top of the optical drive tray.